1 EAGAN
I’m fatalistic. I’ve always had the feeling that time was running out. After 9/11, I started reading end-of-the-world-type books: Alas, Babylon; Lucifer’s Hammer; On the Beach; The Stand. Then I started hoarding bottles of water and granola bars under my bed. Last year I spent my birthday money on two hundred batteries, which I kept in a shoe box at the back of my closet. Of course, I never intended to die. I mean, really die. I thought I’d be one of those who survived the end-of-the-world catastrophe. In the end, what did me in was a freak accident. No end of the world, just the end of my world. If I had to do it all over again, I’d have eaten those granola bars. The odd part is that the whole thing started in such a small way. I was off by an inch. No, less than that. Half an inch. The size of a shirt button. Hardly worth mentioning. Most people barely notice half an inch. Except for my geometry teacher,
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in a HEARTBEAT who made us estimate to the nearest quarter inch. Mrs. Koster said accuracy was of the utmost importance. But it’s not. Not always. Like the curb I backed onto last month when I was parallel parking for my driver’s license test. I’d swerved too sharply and the back tire of Mom’s blue Chevy slid half an inch off the pavement. I swallowed hard, thinking how embarrassed I would be when I had to tell everyone that I flunked. I thought of Mom watching from the redbrick building across the road, of the disappointment I’d have to see on her face. I thought my life was over right then and there. But the nice man with the bushy brows said that mistake only reduced my score by five points. Not enough to fail me. Half an inch didn’t keep me from getting my driver’s license. In gym class when I threw the basketball, if I aimed at the center of the net, half an inch didn’t make a bit of difference. The ball still went through the hoop. Half an inch. Slightly less than the diameter of a dime. Most of the time I wouldn’t even have noticed if I was half an inch off. Even in figure skating, half an inch can be covered up. If you move half an inch on your sit spin, you might not even get a deduction. But sometimes half an inch is really important. If your timing is off and you miss your triple lutz landing, you could end up on your butt on the cold ice. Or worse, you could do what I did. You could go flying off into the boards and hit your head on the edge, a tiny half inch of sharp white board, and if you hit it just right like I did, you die. Half an inch. It’s enough to cause dreams to fall apart, enough to make the difference between life and death. I should have listened to Mrs. Koster when she told us what a difference half an inch could make. 2
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2 Amelia
I sat cross-legged on the gray carpet of my bedroom floor drawing a picture of a horse, absorbed in the details of the horse’s head. The eyelashes weren’t right. They were too long. Too feminine. He was a stallion, after all. I glanced up as a stallion on TV snorted. A man yanked on the reins and the horse turned around. They sprinted off into the sunset, leaving a haze of trail dust in their wake. I didn’t notice Mom right away. She was at the door, her whole body rigid, gripping the doorknob. When I looked up, she reminded me of Kyle’s little car when it’s wound tight, just before he lets it zoom across the floor. And I knew what it was even before she opened her mouth. I knew something big was about to happen. “The beeper went off,” I said. Mom nodded. Her voice was rushed. “We have to leave right away. Aunt Sophie is coming over to watch Kyle. Your dad is going to meet us there.” Her eyes held mine for a long moment. I nodded and held
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in a HEARTBEAT back tears. For weeks I’d imagined how it would be when Mom told me, how I thought I’d feel. I’d pictured myself jumping up and down in excitement, both of us bursting into happy tears. Two months of waiting. People die every day waiting for the call. Now I was one of the lucky ones. But in that instant I couldn’t think of luck or happiness. I froze, trapped in that moment, afraid to speak. A commercial for batteries came on. I turned my head and watched as the Energizer Bunny zoomed back and forth. I would have run out of power halfway across the screen. I didn’t have the energy to jump up and down with excitement. Every morning I woke up tired. Mom finally sprang to action. She reached down and yanked my packed suitcase out of the bedroom corner with shaking hands. Her mouth trembled. “Is there anything else you need to pack? Do you want to put your notebook and drawing pencils in here?” My fingers grasped a brown pencil. My fingertips were blue and chubby, as if they’d already accepted the lack of oxygen and were hibernating. I listened to the beat, the sound of my heart, swishing like a washing machine. Was it possible that sound would go away? That I’d stop feeling like I was carrying a stack of books on my chest and be able to walk down the steps in my own house? A picture of me sits on my dresser. I’m posing with my soccer team when I was eight, before I got sick. The girl in the picture is as strange to me as the photos of my dead grandmother. I’m supposed to remember her, but I don’t. “Drawing pencils?” Mom reminded me, her hand outstretched.
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Amelia I held out the pack to her. “What if it doesn’t fit?” I said, my left hand covering my heart as if I were pledging allegiance. “Oh, there’s plenty of room in here . . . ,” she started, but then stopped. Mom looked at me hard, like she looks when she’s working her crossword. Finally she reached over and touched the side of my face. “I have a feeling about this, honey.” “Okay.” I swallowed. Mom knew I was sick before I knew it myself. She has a sixth sense about that stuff. I closed my notebook filled with horses. They’re all I draw—horses. The only thing I’ve ever drawn since I was little. The only thing that relaxes me. Arabians, Morgans, Thoroughbreds, Palominos. I’ve researched them all: their anatomy and muscles and bones, the different breeds, how the light shades their faces. I’ve ridden one once, a mare the color of the clay pots outside my window, cinnamon and rust. Her name was Dusty. I was about to turn off the TV when the news came on. They were reporting on an accident on Interstate 35. I stopped and stared, hoping that wasn’t where my heart was coming from. The last few months I’d paid closer attention to the news, listening for the ages of victims, wondering if they died on the spot or at the hospital, wondering if the doctors saved their hearts. I didn’t want to live through another person’s death. But it was part of the deal. Dr. Michael had said, “People are going to die regardless of whether you live or not. Their gift to you might help ease the pain of the family and friends who are mourning that person’s loss.”
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in a HEARTBEAT But the fact remained that someone else had to die for me to live. Someone else had to grieve for me to be happy. And every night at dinner, when my family prayed for a new heart for me, we were praying for that to happen.
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3 EAGAN
The only funeral I ever attended was Grandma’s. She looked like she was asleep in her favorite purple dress. Mom said Grandma was looking down on us from heaven, which gave me the creeps. I think I’m dead. Really dead, as in no longer on Earth. I feel removed from my body, like a balloon that someone let loose and is floating up into the ozone. I’m in nowhere land, a gray misty place. The gray is thick like fog, but it’s dry and has no texture or substance. I try to push through it, but it’s like pushing through water—more fog fills in the gap. If I am dead, I hope I don’t have to stay here forever. I hate gray. I’m more of a purple person, like Grandma. “Help!” I shout. No one answers. I feel alone and it scares me. I don’t want to be here. I want to be back on the ice, finishing my performance. Or at home in my bed, having a bad dream. Or even in the hospital, drugged up and hurt, with a bad headache, but still alive.
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in a HEARTBEAT The only thing keeping me from screaming is that my life is playing out in bits and pieces in front of me. You know how when people on TV die, their lives flash before their eyes? That’s kind of how it is for me. Fragments of my life are laid out in front of me like an interactive photo album. All I have to do is remember a moment and there it all is. Every detail! Of course, right now all I can focus on are the negative moments. Some things don’t change with death. I’m starting with the last meal I ate, my own personal Last Supper.
“Eat your meat,” Mom ordered. I was picking through my chicken. I’d found a pink spot and I couldn’t stand eating chicken that was even a tiny bit pink. But Mom was watching me. She had tried out another new recipe: chicken cacciatore, which had tomatoes in it. Maybe that’s what was making the chicken look pink, but I still didn’t want to eat it. I made a face at Dad, who was chomping away. He could eat anything. I ate more pasta. Mom put down her napkin. “You’re not becoming anorexic, are you? You’re awfully thin.” I rolled my eyes. “No, Mom. You see me eat all the time.” “A lot of figure skaters have that problem. How do I know you’re not one of them?” I picked at my chicken. That’s what she sounded like: a chicken clucking. The senseless noise irritated my ears. “Not our Eagan,” Dad reassured her. “She eats all the time. She just aced her physical.” Dad patted his round stomach. “She’s thin because she inherited your genes, Cheryl.” Mom always said she’d been fighting off the same twenty8
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five pounds ever since I was born. Now she smiled at the compliment. I took a drink of milk to hide my smirk. “Keep eating, Eagan,” she told me. I sighed and picked at the chicken. How could she not know that I ate? And I did ace my physical after throwing a fit when Mom tried to follow me into the exam room. “Dr. Joyce let me listen to my heart through the stethoscope, Dad. She said I had a low heart rate, like a trained athlete. She’s so much better than old Dr. Peterson too.” I’d listened for the first time to my heart beating in my chest, the thump-thump of my own percussion section. “You always loved Dr. Peterson when you were little,” Mom said. Dad smiled. “Well, she’s not little anymore. She’s growing up into a young woman. In a couple of years she’ll be off to college.” “Or maybe in two years she’ll be competing at the senior level. Maybe she’ll want to see how far she can go in skating first.” “Hello? Isn’t that up to me to decide? It is my future, after all.” Dad stuck his fork into another piece of chicken. “Of course, pumpkin. We just want what’s best for you.” Mom reached over with her fork and knife and cut my chicken into smaller chunks. “We know how hard you’ve worked. We know how much talent you have.” “I’m not two years old.” I pulled my plate away from her. “And I don’t like to eat a lot before a competition. That doesn’t make me anorexic like . . .” I stopped before the name popped out. “Like who?” 9
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in a HEARTBEAT I fiddled with my fork. “None of your business.” “Eagan, you lose that attitude this instant. Anorexia is a serious sickness. Is this girl getting help?” “Yes.” “Well, who is it?” I leaned over and looked out the window. Where was Kelly? I needed saving. My packed bag and skates sat ready in the foyer. “Eagan,” Mom persisted. “Okay, okay. Just stop bugging me. It’s Bailey.” It wasn’t often that I could surprise Mom. She was reaching for her water and almost knocked the glass over. “Bailey? But she’s . . .” “A little heavy? Our coaches have told us all about anorexia and bulimia, Mom. You don’t have to be überthin to have it.” “Well, I’m just flabbergasted. I thought she was trimming down so she could make her jumps better.” “Do her parents know?” Dad looked up from his plate but didn’t stop eating. “Yeah. She’s getting therapy, but the coaches might not let her compete for a while.” “What about Nationals?” Mom’s voice sounded hopeful. I suspected the hope wasn’t out of concern for Bailey. “It’s up to the coaches.” “But you’re the first alternate.” “I know, Mom.” Mom clapped her hands together. “I have to get time off work. Nationals. Colorado!” I tried not to get caught up in her excitement. Sure, I wanted to go to Nationals. If Bailey had accidentally torn a ligament 10
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or something, that’d be fine. But not this way. It would be kicking Bailey when she was already down. No way would I eat a bite of Mom’s chicken now. She claimed she wasn’t one of those pushy skating moms, that she was diligent when it came to making an investment of time and money. I could quit whenever I wanted. But if I wanted to skate, I had to do it her way. In ten years she never let me skip a practice. She watched at least one practice a week and my coach was on her speed dial. I stretched my legs under the table. I hated this glass table, hated how everything underneath was visible. Mom’s feet folded at the ankles and tucked under her chair. Dad’s brown loafers tapped the floor as he ate, as if he couldn’t wait to be done. I couldn’t even flip Mom off under the table. She’d see. What if I dumped my plate off the edge? How would that look through the glass? I peeked at Mom. She was frowning at me as if she knew my thoughts, so I distracted her by pointing at the lighted candles. “What’s the special occasion? The last time you lit the candles was Easter dinner.” Mom’s eyes were different shades of brown that changed depending on her mood. Now they held a copper tint as she flashed a quick look at Dad. He raised one eyebrow at her. The bald patch on the top of his head glistened in the candlelight. “We have something to tell you,” Mom said, playing with her napkin under the table as she spoke. “It’s about the trip Dad and I took to Hawaii.” The trip where I had to stay with Grandpa and rake wet leaves into a garbage bag instead of sunning on the warm beaches of Maui? The trip where there had been lots of fighting 11
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in a HEARTBEAT beforehand, and Dad said it would help their marriage? “The trip you took for your marriage problems,” I said. “Well, I’d call it more of a vacation,” Mom said, blushing. “Then why didn’t I get to go?” “We needed time to ourselves, Eagan.” “I would have left you alone if you’d taken me.” “You had practice. Besides, we needed to get away.” “From me?” “For God’s sake, Eagan, it isn’t always about you.” “You’re right. It’s always about you.” Mom sighed and shook her head. “You know what? Just forget it.” Yes, please. I didn’t need this before a competition. I felt grouchy, ready to fight again. I hadn’t slept well, but I didn’t dare mention that I was tired. Not after they’d caught Scott in my room last night when they’d returned from the movies. Not after I’d argued with Mom and confronted her with her lies. Not after she’d found my stash of bottles and granola bars and had yelled at me and said she’d take me to a therapist if I didn’t change my outlook. “Hey, now.” Dad put down his fork. “I don’t want my two girls fighting during dinner. Eagan, parents go on vacation without their kids all the time. It’s not a crime.” “Yeah, sure.” I didn’t care if they went away without me. I’d just wanted to go to Hawaii. Mom jutted out her chin like she was getting ready to yell, but then she reached over and pulled my plate back, away from the edge of the table. “So tell me more about Bailey. How long do you think she’ll be out? I’ll have to say something to Barbara. Poor woman.” I could see her brain working,
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coming up with something sympathetic to say, even while planning how I would take Bailey’s place at Nationals. “I’m sorry for Bailey, but she’s always been kind of nasty to you. Remember three years ago when she had a sleepover and didn’t invite you, and you cried the whole evening? Plus, Bailey doesn’t have the total package. You do. That’s why you can go far in this sport.” “Mom, just because you skated a million years ago doesn’t make you an expert. And Bailey’s a lot nicer now.” “Your coach is the one who always tells me how talented you are. I hate to say it, but Bailey has legs like tree trunks. And starving herself isn’t going to make her beautiful like you.” I wished Mom was more like Dad. He still didn’t know the difference between an axel and a sit spin. “Maybe Bailey will be allowed to compete,” I said in a positive voice. “Her coach wants her to continue practicing.” Mom shook her head. “How can they allow that? Someone should talk to them.” I pushed back my chair. “God, Mom. It’s none of your business. I shouldn’t even have told you about Bailey.” “I’m just thinking of Bailey, of what’s best for her.” I glared at her. “No, you’re not. You’re thinking of getting her disqualified so I can go to Nationals instead of her.” Mom put her hand on her throat. “What an awful thing to say.” A car horn blared outside. My ride was here. Mom looked at me as though I was a stranger. I stood and grabbed my skates and bag. “Awful words for an awful person,” I said.
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4 Amelia
The beeper had gone off. What I’d hoped for but dreaded. I could hear Mom downstairs, putting in a hurried load of laundry, the water rushing through the pipes. It reminded me of Dr. Michael, of how he always washed his hands before he touched me, how he tapped his knuckles on the sink to get off the excess water, then patted them dry on a paper towel. “You’re in the early stages of CHF, congestive heart failure. It’s time to start thinking about a heart transplant.” Dr. Michael had folded his arms the way he always did when he talked to me. His voice softened too. “Can’t you just fi x my heart?” He’d patted my back. I liked the gentle way he touched me, like I was a porcelain doll, an expensive doll that might break if handled without care. “Sorry, kiddo. We’ve done all we can. A transplant is the way to go now. We’ve come a long way in the last six years. We’re going to do better than just fi x that worn-out heart. We’re going to get you a new one.”
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Amelia But I hadn’t wanted a new one. I’d wanted my old one fi xed. Dr. Michael’s nurse had given me a book written by a kid who’d had a heart transplant. The cover showed him skiing down the Alps afterward, wearing a shiny yellow alpine jacket over his new heart, his rosy cheeks flushed with good health. Mom and Dad had gotten a bunch of pamphlets too, including one called Teens and Heart Transplants. I’d stared at the book. Was that boy really as happy and healthy as he looked? How did he feel about having someone else’s heart in him? “And remember,” Dr. Michael had said before we left, “write down any questions you have so you can ask me next time.” I’d written one question a week: How long would the operation take? Would it hurt? How long would my new heart last? What would they do with my old heart? Dr. Michael had answered each one. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t say they were dumb questions. He’d said that the operation usually takes several hours, that I’d be asleep and wouldn’t feel anything, and that they didn’t know how long my heart would last, but if I took my medication it could last my whole lifetime. He’d said my old heart would be disposed of. After talking with him, I would feel better for the rest of the day, until another question popped up, another worry that I carried around until the following week. Another weight on my already heavy heart. Slowly I learned about the procedure. The transplant team would be checking out my donor heart while I was getting ready for surgery. I’d wake up with a tube in my mouth 15
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in a HEARTBEAT and a catheter in my bladder and tubes draining from my chest. With someone else’s heart inside me. I was more worried about the tube in my mouth at first. The thought of not being able to talk to Mom or Dad scared me. What if something hurt? How would I tell them? “You’ll have something to write on,” Dr. Michael had said. I’d had a catheter before. I knew that hurt. “We’ll take it out as soon as we can,” Dr. Michael had said. “And you’ll be on pain medication, so you won’t feel it like before.” Now I sat on my bedroom floor, playing that moment over in my mind, wishing I could freeze time or even move it back to before the beeper went off. It wasn’t so bad, living this way, even though I was getting worse. First had come the low-salt diet. Not so bad, but I missed pizza and popcorn. Then came all the medicine, even the one that made my face swell. I couldn’t go to school, couldn’t face the staring. I stayed in my room most of the time because I looked like a chipmunk. Later came the hacking cough and the diuretics that made me go to the bathroom all the time. By then I was being homeschooled. No school field trips. No parties. No friends. Worst of all, the shortness of breath. At first I couldn’t run. Then I couldn’t make it up the steps to my bedroom. The wheelchair at the mall made me feel like a freak. And the last resort was the transplant list. I was still alive, but how long would I last? And how long had it been since I’d felt like a normal person? Even if I got a new heart, did I remember how to live anymore? I stared down at my half-finished drawing, until I noticed Kyle peeking around the corner of my door. He held a pack of 16
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Amelia cards in his sticky hands. His sweaty blond bangs stuck to his forehead like frosting dripping down the side of a cake. “What you doin’?” Mom called Kyle a hurricane in motion. I called him a spoiled brat. Even though Mom had taken my pencils, I hid behind my notebook, scared and ner vous, but not wanting to admit it to my kid brother. “Drawing.” “With what? You don’t have anything to draw with.” “I’m thinking of what to draw.” “Wanna play cards?” “I’m busy.” “Aunt Sophie’s going to take me to a ninja movie tomorrow, and we’re going to order pizza too.” “That’s nice.” “Mom said I gotta wait two or three days after you get your new heart to come visit.” His voice was light. Mom and Dad hadn’t told him how serious the surgery was. They said seven was too young to understand, so they sugarcoated it like they used to do for me, telling me I was going to get a pinch in the arm when it turned out to be a needle. “I know,” I replied. “Only Mom and Dad can visit me at first, and they’ll have to wear special masks.” “Will I get to wear one too?” “Maybe.” “All right!” How dumb and selfish he was, just wanting to wear a stupid mask. “You have to wear a mask so I don’t catch any germs from you and die.” 17
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in a HEARTBEAT Kyle’s mouth dropped open. He stepped closer. “Mom said you’re going to be better after you get your heart. Better than you are now.” “Yeah, but I’ll have to take antirejection medicine for the rest of my life or I could die.” “What’s antirection medicine?” “Antirejection. It’s medicine that tricks my body into thinking the new heart belongs to me. But it’s just a trick because it won’t really be my heart.” “You already take lots of medicine.” “This is different.” Kyle squinted at me. “Are you scared?” Huh. Maybe he wasn’t so dumb. I looked back down at my notebook. “I’m just not happy about having surgery.” It was true. Not like anyone had asked me. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want any of this, but I especially didn’t want to have my heart ripped out of me. Kyle was quiet for a second. “Mom said you’re going to be fi ne.” My chest felt heavy and I let out a short breath. “Mom doesn’t know everything.” “You have to be fine.” Kyle’s face was scrunched up like I’d just punched him in the stomach. Mom appeared then, hurrying down the hallway. “Amelia, you should be downstairs. We have to leave within thirty minutes of the call.” The lines around Mom’s face and mouth were deeper today. She used to run all the time and kept four trophies from her high school track team on the bookshelf in the living room. They’re gone now. Kyle let out a sigh. He knew only that his sister had a 18
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Amelia heart problem, and she took lots of medicine and didn’t go to school like other kids. I put down my notebook. “I’ll be right there, Mom.” After she left, I turned to Kyle. “I’m going to play a quick game of cards first.”
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5 EAGAN
I’m not hungry or tired or sore. But there’s more to this mist than grayness. I feel as if I’m being watched. Maybe I’m in a coma. I mean, I’m surrounded by gray fog instead of standing in front of the pearly gates of heaven. And no one is here to greet me, not even Grandma. That should probably tell me something. But worst of all, I don’t even care. Because if I really am dead, then I was cheated. I wasn’t supposed to die this young. And if I’m in a coma I could be trapped here for the rest of my life, and that’s not fair, either. I wonder about the moment my skull crashed against that edge. I wonder if there was a lot of blood, if it stained the ice red until the Zamboni scraped off the layer of ice. Or did I have internal injuries and look like I was sleeping? Did Mom and Dad want to reach out and shake me, as though that would help me wake up? Grandma’s funeral was the only one I ever attended. If I’m dead, I don’t want to see mine. I couldn’t bear to see the grief I caused.
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I turn and twist and move through the fog. I call out. My voice echoes in the gray distance, as though I’m shouting off the top of a tall cliff. No one answers. I’m completely alone, except for the flashbacks from my life, which play out in front of me no matter where I move. I tell myself to stop looking back at my past. It’s not like my life was so fascinating or anything. There were only sixteen years of it. But I can’t help myself, just as I was drawn to those end-of-the-world books even as I was laying out perfect plans for my own Olympic future. It’s ironic that when I was alive, all I thought about was death. And now all I can think about is my life. I remember those last hours. The last hours of my life.
Kelly had her own car, a red Pontiac Grand Am with a tea green interior that looked black unless light was shining on it. Even though Kelly was the worst driver I knew, everything about her car felt safe. Not to mention cool. Bucket seats. Leopard fabric– covered steering wheel. WMYX blaring out the latest hits. The smell of lavender, Kelly’s scent. Or maybe the cool part was Kelly herself, and the fact that she was willing to be friends with a sophomore. “What?” she asked when I slammed the car door. “My mom.” Kelly tapped my skull. “Put her out of your head. Just think about the competition.” “I never let her get into my head.” Silence. Kelly was thinking. “She’s in your head a lot. And why are you working overtime to make senior level?” 21
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in a HEARTBEAT “Not for her.” “Right.” Kelly peeled out of the driveway. “You’re taking ballet lessons and you do off-ice conditioning besides skating practice five times a week. And that’s fine because you’re good enough to have that Olympic dream. But only if you’re doing it for yourself.” Kelly paused. Her voice was low. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re doing all this for her.” “God, she’s such a head case,” I said. “Nothing I do pleases her anyway.” “At least your mom makes it to all your competitions. My mom is going to my sister’s soccer tournament today.” “Yeah, but you want your mom to come.” Kelly handed me a purple lollipop, my usual precompetition snack. “Look at it this way. You have a bigger cheering section.” I unwrapped the lollipop and took a long lick. “She needs therapy.” “Don’t all moms?” “Believe me, she needs it more than most.” “I have an aunt who takes antidepressants. Maybe you can slip some in your mom’s drink.” “That’s a great idea.” “I was joking!” “I wasn’t.” “You’re bad.” Kelly laughed as she made a quick right turn. She snorted when she laughed and never cared who heard it. “I’m going to miss this next year. You ragging about your mom. I’m even going to miss skating every day. It’s stuck in my system. Wish I was as good as you, though.”
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Kelly had weak ankles from repetitive strains. She skated because she loved it, nothing more. “Won’t you miss competing?” I asked. “No. I’m not into fame and glory like you.” “Come on. It’s not just that. I love the costumes and the music and being able to land a triple salchow and do things that other people can’t do.” Kelly’s hair wove tightly around her head and gathered into a braided bun on top. She scratched at her braids. “That’s the difference between us. I get too scared. You’re not afraid of anything.” I pulled my fingers through my ponytail. I wouldn’t put my hair up until just before competition. Fussing with my hair and makeup was a ritual that helped with precompetition nerves. I thought of telling Kelly how afraid I was that there wasn’t much time left, how I felt an eerie sense of urgency. But this wasn’t the time for pessimism. “Not true. I get butterflies just like you before competing. But once the music starts, I’m in my zone on the ice.” “Cold ice. That’s one thing I won’t miss at six in the morning.” Kelly had it all planned out. She was going to Florida State to study physical therapy. The only plan I’d ever had was skating. Mom kept a scrapbook of my skating career. Whenever I looked at it, I was amazed at how much time I’d spent skating, at how much it had consumed my life. I tried to figure it out once. I’d spent 14,560 hours skating. Six hundred days, adding up to 1.7 years straight. And I spent at least another 14,000 hours doing skating-related stuff, like picking out
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in a HEARTBEAT my costumes and buying new skates and traveling to competitions. Recently I’d been questioning the whole dream. But I wasn’t sure I could let it go. And even if I wanted to, how would I ever tell Mom? I’d grown up with Mom’s voice in my head. How could I hear my own voice beneath the roar of hers? I sighed. “It won’t be as fun next year without you.” “I’ll be back over Christmas break. Besides, we still have this year.” She put out her fist and we bumped knuckles, our good-luck sign. “Tonight we’re gonna kick some ass.” “I’m doing my triple lutz tonight.” “You’ll stick it too, Dynamo,” Kelly said with certainty. “You make that in competition and you’ll blow the judges away.” I stuck out a purple tongue. “Call me Purple Dynamo.” She pulled into the parking lot of the ice arena, a brown brick building with a slanted roof and floor-to-ceiling windows. I’d grown up learning to skate here, fighting for ice time with the hockey teams. I put my hand up to my ear and fingered the edge of my sapphire earring. Like Michelle Kwan’s gold dragon necklace, I have my own good-luck symbol. The earrings had belonged to my grandma and had passed down to me when she died. We hurried inside, past the refreshment counter and the odor of hot dogs and popcorn. We made our way down to the level of the ice, where the refrigerant smell eased my butterflies. My coach was talking to another coach, and my warm-up group was already there. As we passed by, I waved at Jasmine, one of the younger skaters, who would be competing in the level below me. She just turned ten last week. I changed 24
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into my skating dress and did my makeup and hair. Then I laced up my boots for the practice session. Whenever I get on the ice at a rink, the first thing I do is bend down and feel the ice. Most people would laugh at this. Ice is ice, right? But each rink has its own touch, its own heartbeat. I knew how this one felt, but I still bent down and touched it out of habit. Tonight the ice was strangely absent of feeling. It was just cold. I stood and shook off a shiver. During warm-ups, I attempted my triple lutz twice. I fell the first time, then landed it after that. I ended up close to the boards. “Watch for the boards,” my coach, Brian, said. “They’re behind you on the jump and they come up fast.” “Okay.” He shook his head. “I’ve never trained anyone as gutsy as you. Or as hyper. We should put rocks in your pockets to hold you down.” I twirled around. “Wouldn’t work.” Tonight I was lucky. I was first in the competition, my short event. I’d get the combination jump out of the way at the top of my routine. Then I had the double axel and the triple lutz. After that, the remainder of my routine was a breeze. I pictured myself holding that first-place starburst trophy in my hands. “You pumped?” Kelly asked me as I paced during the presentation of the judges. I tugged at my dress. It was plum silk with long mesh sleeves and gold rhinestone accents. The rhinestones reflected the overhead lights. My hair is wild and hard to tame, but I’d pulled it into a tight bun with the help of lots of hair spray and a matching plum-colored scrunchie. Then I’d topped it off with glitter. 25
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in a HEARTBEAT “Yeah. I love going first.” This way, I wouldn’t have to watch the other skaters landing their triple jumps before me, each success stabbing at my confidence. Fear and doubt were a skater’s worst enemies, and I wasn’t about to give in to them tonight. My name was called. “Don’t think. Just skate,” Brian told me. I skated out to the middle of the ice, stood stone-still in my pose. The overhead lights were hot and the ice was cold. I felt like a doll frozen in an action stance. “Go, Dynamo!” Kelly and the other girls from my club yelled as I waited for the music to start. I’d chosen fast music, a Pirates of the Caribbean song that matched my daredevil personality. I turned my head slightly and found Mom and Dad in their usual spot, third row up smack-dab in the middle of the rink. Dad was talking to a man next to him. Mom’s hands were clasped together as if praying. Her eyes were bright and glowing. I felt ashamed for what I’d said—“Awful words for an awful person.” I’d ruined dinner and had never found out what she’d wanted to talk about. I caught Mom’s eye just then. She smiled and waved at me. I gave her a small wave back. Then I blocked out everything as I stared straight ahead. I got rid of the cheers, the voices, the rustling of programs. I even got rid of Mom. The music began to play and my body responded on cue, each move choreographed. I glided across the ice and felt my silk dress flow away from my body. I swept around the perimeter of the ice, landed my combination jump in perfect time to the music, then gathered speed as the audience applauded. 26
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I let the music seep through me and concentrated on each move. I could feel the adrenaline pumping. My heart raced. I hit my double axel and circled around the rink toward the corner for the triple lutz. I launched off the back outside edge of my skate, which was what I was supposed to do, but I knew the minute my skates left the ice that I’d messed up somehow. I rose into the air and turned my body counterclockwise for three rotations. I was supposed to land on the outside edge of my opposite foot, but that’s not what happened. When I came down, I was out of synch with my body, and the ice wasn’t where it was supposed to be. I hit hard, landing on the wrong side of my skate. I tried to stop, tried to steady myself. I hit my toe pick on the ice and went flying. I was close to the boards. Too close. I had a fraction of a second, not enough time to move my head, but long enough to know I was going to hit the board. Long enough to know it would hurt.
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